After policymakers borrowed heavily to keep government afloat amid a festering fiscal crisis that blew holes in the state’s budget for four years, a former Senate president tried to put into place a mechanism to rein in politicians’ appetite for debt-financing.

Most state lawmakers insist they had no other choice than to borrow billions of dollars to keep Arizona government running during the past few years. The reality, however, is that they had a couple of options – they just didn’t like them.

With the state's budget crisis showing no signs of abating, voters on Nov. 2 will be electing a governor who could have a yearslong headache while trying to keep the state running and in the black amid a still unsteady economy.

The state has borrowed more than $2 billion during the past four fiscal years, boosting its total debt load to $9.7 billion.
At least one-third of the state’s debt must be repaid using money from the same account that lawmakers draw upon to pay for public education, Medicaid programs and other basic government services.